Communication  f 
Conf  Pam  #322 

DTTDa3S5EZ 


HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES,  Ffb.    17,    I S65.— Referred 
to  Committee  on  Naval  ^^^'i^'Sj  and  ordered  to  be  printed. 

[By  the  Chair.] 


MESSAGE  OF  THE  PRESIDENT. 

Richmond,  Va.,  Feb.  15,  1865. 
To  the  House  of  Representatives : 

In  further  response  to  your  resolution  of  the  25th 
ultimo,  I  herewith  transmit,  for  your  information,  a  communication 
from  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  covering  copies  of  the  remainder  of 
his  correspondence  with  the  governor  of  North  CaroHna,  relative  to 
coals  belonging  to  the  steamer  Advance. 

JEFFERSON  DAVIS. 


COMMUNICATION  FROM  SECRETARY  OF  NAVY. 

Confederate  States  of  America, 
Navy  Department, 

Riclmond,  Feb.  15, 1865. 
To  the  President : 

Sir: 

Referring  to  my  letter  of  the  .3 let  ultimo,  transmitting, 
in  response  to  a  resolution  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  "copies 
of  the  correspondence  between  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  and  the 
Governor  of  North  Carolina,  touching  the  seizure  of  the  coals  of  the 
steamer  Advance  by  the  officers  of  the  Navy  Department,"  I  have 
now  the  honor  to  transmit  herewith,  copies  of  two  letters  from  Grover- 
nor  Vance,  dated  the  9th  and  11th  instant,  in  reply  to  my  letter  of 
the  28th  ultimo,  and  respectfully  suggest  that  they  be  submitted  to 
the  House  of  Representatives.  These  letters  will  close  the  corres- 
pondence on  the  subject  referred  to  in  the  resolution  of  the  House. 

I  am,  respectfully. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

S.  R.  MALLORY, 

Secretary  of  the  Navy. 


►State  of  North  Carolina, 

Executive  Department, 

Raleigh,  Feb.  9,  1865, 

Hon.  S.  R.  Mallory,  Secretary  of  the  Navy^: 

Sir: 

Your  communication  of  the  28th  iilt.  has  been  received, 
in  regard  to  what  you  are  pleased  to  term  a  question  of  fact  between 
yourself  and  me. 

I  have  not  the  slightest  objection  to  your  proposed  adherence  to 
the  statements  made  in  your  former  communication.  I  only  desire 
to  be  admitted  a  similar  privilege  of  adhering  to  my  own  allegations 
in  regard  to  the  loss  of  the  Advance.  Nor  do  I  care  to  argue  the 
"question  of  fact,"  so  gravely  made  upon  me,  involving  only  a  quib- 
ble as  to  whether  coal  in  the  possession  of  my  agent  was  in  my  pos- 
session. The  distinction  between  that  kind  of  possession  which  is 
r(>quired  to  sup{)ort  an  indictment  for  larceny  and  that  required  to 
sustain  an  action  of  trespass  vi  et  armis,  might  be  learnedly  descanted 
upon  here ;  but  as  you  very  properly  observe  in  reference  to  my 
allusion  to  the  supposed  gold  on  board  the  Advance,  it  would  be 
"unnecessary  to  the  determination  of  this  single  question  of  fact." 

But  tliough  such  is  my  susceptibility  to  reason,  I  may  be  induced 
to  forego  an  argument  on  the  question  of  the  possession  of  my  agent 
being  my  possession,  I  confess  I  am  not  quite  ready  to  admit  that  the 
possession  of  A  B,  abstractly  considered,  is  not  the  possession  of 
A  B  ;  or  that  other  remarkable  proposition,  that  the  legal  and  undis- 
puted possession  of  an  article,  affords  not  "the  slightest  claim"  of 
property.  And  yet  such  doctrine  I  understand  you  to  advance  when 
acknowledging  that  Power,  Low  and  Co.  were  part  owners  of  the 
steamer  Advance;  that  your  agents  took  one  hundred  and  sixty  tons 
of  coal  from  them.  You  yet  assert  "  that  not  one  particle  of  coal 
was  taken  from  the  steamer  Advance,  nor  one  pound  impressed  to 
which  the  state,  or  any  of  the  joint  owners  of  that  steamer,  had  the 
slightest  claim." 

Now,  in  the  name  of  Blackstone,  Coke,  and  all  the  lawyers  at  once, 
from  Moses  to  Captain  Pinkney,  who  rfi^  have  any  claim  to  that  coal? 
Who  was  its  owner? 

])Ut  really,  my  dear  sir,  I  think  this  correspondence  had  better 
close,  and  leave  the  i)ublic  and  the  proper  committee  in  Congress  to 
determine  the  question  between  us.  If  the  taking  from  my  agent  of 
coals  collected  by  him  for  the  use  of  my  vessel  and  his,  did  not  jus- 
tify me  in  my  statements  to  the  Legislature,  then  I  am  content  they 
should  say  so.  I  desire,  of  course,  no  difficulty  with  the  Navy  De- 
partment, or  any  other  branch  of  my  government,  struggling  and 
straining  as  they  are  in  the  public  defence.  I  was  induced  more  par- 
ticularly to  make  this  public  complaint,  because  it  was  not  the  first 
time  that  the  coals  for  my  steamer  had  been  seized  by  the  confederate 
authorities  in  Wilmington  ;  and  for  the  further  reason  that  from  the 
first  I  met  with  nothing  but  opposition  from  all  sides  in  my  efforts  to 
clothe  the  troops  of  North  Carolina. 


I  mentioned  those  other  matters  to  which  you  allude  as  irrelevant 
to  the  present  question,  simply  because  I  considered  the  general  po- 
licy of  my  message  on  this  head,  as  assailed  by  you,  and  as  I  there 
assailed  the  policy  of  the  government.  Now  that  the  fact  that  the 
defences  of  the  Cape  Fear  and  the  closure  of  our  last  port  have  given 
a  melancholy  confirmation  to  my  strictures,  I  have  no  more  to  say  on 
this  subject. 

Very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

(Signed)  Z.  B.  VANCE. 


State  of  North  Carolina, 

Executive  Department, 

Raleigh,  Feb.  11,  1865. 

Hon.  S.  R.  Mallory,   Secretary  of  the  Navy: 

Sir: 

On  examining  a  printed  copy  of  your  letter  to  me  of 
the  2Sth  December  last,  sent  me  by  a  member  of  Congress,  I  find 
that  I  had  committed  the  mistake  of  attributing  to  Captain  Pinkney 
certain  offensive  expressions,  which  were  only  used  by  one  J.  A.  Wil- 
lard,  naval  coal  agent. 

I  was  led  into  this  by  the  following  language  in  your  letter — 
"  Captain  Pinkney,  C.  S.  Navy,  &c.  forwards  the  following  report," 
and  by  not  noticing  the  signatures  closely  at  the  end  of  the  quota- 
tion. I  have  the  honor,  therefore,  to  beg  that  you  will  consider  the 
correspondence,  or  my  part,  amended,  by  striking  out  the  words 
"Captain  Pinkney"  whenever  they  occur,  and  the  insertion  of  "Wil- 
lard  ;"  and  also  by  striking  out  any  words  of  respect  or  praise  in  my 
first  letter,  qualifying  "  Captain  Pinkney,"  as  not  applicable  to  the 
word  "  Willard ;"  for  I  should  as  greatly  regret  the  waste  of  civility 
on  the  latter,  as  I  do  the  unintentional  or  mistaken  application  of  any 
censure  to  the  former. 

I  am,  sir,  very  respectfully, 

Your  obedient  servant, 

(Signed)  Z.  B.  VANCE. 


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